Behind the Green Netting...Images of Success in China
by Lisa | July 29, 2008 at 11:31 AM
The Olympics is only weeks away and soon millions of eyes will be on China. Of course, reporters and cameras will be guided to give a flowering portrait of China and it's possibility in the world. As with any Olympic operation, the city has been scrambling to clean and build a shining example of it's successes to encourage both diplomacy and business. This is crunch time, however, and not everything can be covered up. Plastic netting and walls are now being built that cordon off many street vendors and shops from the thoroughfares where visitors are expected to travel, thus hiding a living, vibrant part of Beijing. These restrictions in traffic flow will definitely cut into the incomes local businesses could also be generating during this event. Residents are being pressured to sell their homes and businesses to turn their communities into landscaped blocks and new buildings. To restore buildings and aid existing business is one thing, but to hide what is being considered an undesirable view is another.
The Olympics is expected to generate $2 billion just in direct revenue (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/29/content_8844260.htm). That's so incredible! Can you imagine if that kind of money went into education, health care and developing sustainable jobs that won't just disappear after the Olympics? What excites me about PulseWire is that here we can share real images of success that are happening to us, our communities and the people we care about! I feel that posting about our solutions is necessary to counteract a way of thinking about people where we can't be walled off and isolated from each other.
Anyone else have stories about struggles with this kind of development going on in your neighborhoods, towns, countries? What's working for you??
New York Times article: Before Guests Arrive, Beijing Hides Some Messes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/sports/olympics/29beijing.html?ex=1375...
Comments
Sounds remotely familiar.
Sounds remotely familiar. Anybody remember Detroit hosting the Super Bowl a few years back? They hid run-down buildings with giant ads. I guess more than one city is concerned with their vanity.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5182373
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/national/22detroit.html?pagewanted=1&_...
www.mosophoto.com
www.josieliming.com
Thanks.
I'm so glad that this topic has been thrown out. I love olympic, world cup and any sort of world wide gathering. However, there are so much profit related matters behind those affairs which appear as symbol of peace or cooperation. Personally, I've experienced Yellow Dust storm every spring season in where I'm from Korea, which is located at right side of China. It contains tons of toxic dusts with seasonal dust storm and we cannot even see across the street from where we stand and causes so much health problem and people actually die from it. Well, I'm studying business and so into marketing, but I definitely believe that anti-balanced profitable development always has to pay off what it's affected to the future.
yellow dust storms?
Wow, Inhee. I've never heard of the yellow dust storms. I'm always learning so much from the incredible women of PulseWire! I just did a little research on Yellow Dust at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dust) and saw some footage on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGq6DBne_g). Sooo crazy! Is it windy when the yellow dust comes or does it hang in the air? Is it hard to breathe? Do people wear masks or just go on with their daily living without them? What's it like to live in Korea when these storms are happening? I'm very curious and know next to nothing about the dust storms or the pollution that they carry across the country. Tell me more!